Nevada Commission on Tourism reaches out to LGBT community with new website

The Nevada Commission on Tourism (NCOT) has launched a website to meet the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, an increasingly lucrative and vibrant market within the travel industry. The site, gay.travelnevada.com, offers information on LGBT-featured events, as well as information on Nevada’s wonderful hotels, shows and amenities.

“The Nevada Commission on Tourism recognizes the importance of this vast market to Nevada’s tourism industry,” NCOT Interim Director Larry Friedman said. “We continually expand and improve our efforts to reach potential visitors, and that is why we developed this new website that offers need-to-know information for the LGBT community.”

The LGBT travel business amounts to $60 billion in the United States alone, according to Community Marketing, Inc. (CMI) in San Francisco. A healthy portion of that business comes to Nevada — Las Vegas is one of the top three U.S. destinations for LGBT travelers, according to CMI — and NCOT seeks to maintain and build that LGBT market.

Features on gay.travelnevada.com include information on LGBT events such as Gay Days Las Vegas, Las Vegas Pride, Reno Gay Pride, Lake Tahoe Winterfest and the BigHorn Rodeo. Visitors to the site can click on links to get more information about those events, including dates and links to the event websites.

Website visitors also can get details on LGBT-friendly hotels and events, such as Las Vegas properties Aria Resort & Casino, Artisan Hotel and Aston MonteLago Village Resort, as well as Caesar’s “carnival for grown-ups” show, “Absinthe.”

The gay.travelnevada.com site, of course, also includes a link that offers a free Nevada Visitor’s Guide to those who sign up.